The Resolution

I felt guilty. I had cleaned the bathrooms, and the laundry was fairly caught up. My visiting teaching was all but done and the youngest had been deposited at ballet lessons with several minutes to spare.
But my husband came home earlier than expected, changed into his stripeys and called out, "I have to ref a game nobody knew was happening! I'll be home after 6!" Kiss on the cheek and gone.
I knew he was exhausted, and hungry, a million things on his mind, and he would never see the cash he made reffing this game because we overspent at Christmas. I'd had a couple phone calls for "Bishop", but the messages would wait. He always got to them when he could.
I scrambled to make dinner so he would have a hearty meal to come home to. The kitchen was a little messy, the kids' school dump was still all over the entry, our bedroom was still bare-boned, waiting to be painted, and the piles of things that needed a home after re-organizing my study/laundryroom were still waiting in the dining room.
I had been on the computer most of the day, searching for a vacation rental on the Oregon coast big enough for us and extended family, editing a WIP, and reading.
Later, after dinner, as kids were getting ready for bed, Brandon pulled me in for a hug. "I put in my application today." Our high school principal is retiring. We'd worked together a little on updating his resume.
I told him I was proud of him, and so grateful he works so hard for us, always trying to better himself and our lives. I looked around at the piles of clutter.
"What did you do today?" He had that little smile that told me he already knew the answer.
Heh. I listed as many things as I could, then gave up. "I was on the computer most of the day."
"Mm-hmm."
"I'm sorry."
He just looked at me with that smile.
"I can't seem to find balance. I feel like... I have to search and read and find everything I can-"
"About writing?"
"Mm-hm. It's like I'm getting an education."
He nodded.
"But I have to treat this like a job. With set hours, and I think as soon as I do that, I can get a handle on, you know, the stuff I used to be on top of."
"Sounds good to me. Anything I can do?"

Guilt guilt guilt. Since when did my tell-it-like-it-is, 'I'm-not-a-pessimist-I'm-a-realist', life-is-like-football, "What do flowers have to do with romance?", type 'A' personality husband become Mr. Sensitivity? Because, to be perfectly honest, when I was writing my first novel (2008) into the wee hours of the morning, afternoon, and every hour in-between, throwing cold cereal at the kids and telling him there were left-overs somewhere I was sure of it... the resentment of my laptop and the words filling it up was apparent.
And then he read it. After much begging and pleading and batting of eyelashes, on my part that is, he read my novel. And read and read.
And when he finished he took a deep breath and shook his head, and said, "Come here," and held me really tight.
He said, "You can do this."

So, I am going to give myself a schedule... not too tight, because I am SO not a type 'A' personality, I am going to re-visit the chore chart, and I am going to find some of that balance my family and I deserve. I need to feel good about this endeavor, and I need my family to feel good about it, too. With all that is going on in the world, we are so blessed, and our time is so short.

I can do this.